Mark Martin is having the time of his life competing in the
Craftsman Truck Series and it definitely shows. For the second
consecutive week, Martin held off Germaine Racing teammates
Todd Bodine and Ted Musgrave in a green/white/checker sprint
to the finish.
This time, Martin put his name in the history books as the first
driver ever to win at California Speedway in the IROC Series
as well as all three of NASCAR's national touring divisions
- Cup, Busch and Trucks.

Martin and Bodine swapped the lead twice in the final 30 laps
and Martin took the top spot for the final time off Turn 4 with
less than 20 laps to go in the advertised distance. When Mike
Wallace slammed the wall on Lap 99 it brought out the caution
that neither Martin nor Bodine wanted to see. Just like at Daytona
however, Martin was able to drive his line and successfully
hold off Bodine. "I knew it was pretty much a no-brainer
without the green/white/checker," said Martin. "(Bodine)
made me work for it. He got behind me and got me loose but I
just stabbed the gas on this F-150 and made it to the line.
I'm having a blast."

Bodine had to battle back after a penalty for jumping a restart
sent him to the rear of the field early in the race. With plenty
of time to make up the deficit, Bodine and his crew worked their
pit strategy to perfection and got back into contention for
the victory. "I just needed it to go green," said
Bodine. "When the yellow came out I had cut (Martin's)
lead down to about three truck lengths. We were coming but with
a green/white/checker it's hard to get going. If we could have
had five laps I think we could have done something with him."

Ted Musgrave scored his sixth top-five finish in six track starts
but came up two positions short of his fourth trip to California
Speedway's Victory Lane.
"I thought I had a shot at them," Musgrave said. "I
was rolling through (Turns) 1 and 2 a lot better than Mark and
Todd. But when I came up I really had to hit the brakes hard
to keep from running into my teammate and they jumped away from
me after that. Third place again, for a new deal? I'm happy."
The Craftsman Truck Series will take a two weekend hiatus before
getting back to business at Atlanta Motor Speedway on March
24th for Race #3.

In
what seemed to be a replay of last week's finish at Daytona,
Mark Martin held off Todd Bodine and Ted Musgrave to win Friday
night's racetickets.com 200 at California Speedway. Mike Wallace's
hard crash with two laps remaining set up a green-white-checkered
finish for the second week in a row. Just like at Daytona, Martin
was forced to hold off teammates Bodine and Musgrave. Bodine
rallied from an early penalty for passing on a restart to take
the lead, only to have Martin regain the top spot.